Enhanced Tracking Protection in Firefox automatically protects your privacy while you browse. It blocks many of the trackers that follow you around online to collect information about your browsing habits and interests. It also includes protections against harmful scripts, such as malware that drains your battery.

Though these are invisible protections, you can see what’s being blocked on individual pages by clicking the shield
to the left of the address bar. To see what’s been blocked on all sites over the past week, click the menu button
and select Privacy Protections. (Alternatively, you can enter about:protections into the address bar.) This will open the Privacy Protections page in a new tab.

What Enhanced Tracking Protection blocks

Firefox uses a list of known trackers provided by Disconnect. By default, Firefox blocks the following types of trackers and scripts.

Social media trackers

Cross-site tracking cookies

Cryptominers

Tracking content in Private Windows only. These trackers are hidden in ads, videos, and other in-page content. Blocking them can cause some websites to break. To add this protection in all windows, visit your privacy preferences and select Strict or Custom as explained below.

Social media trackers

Cross-site tracking cookies

Fingerprinters

Cryptominers

Tracking content in Private Windows only. These trackers are hidden in ads, videos, and other in-page content. Blocking them can cause some websites to break. To add this protection in all windows, visit your privacy preferences and select Strict or Custom as explained below.

How to tell when Firefox is protecting you

The shield to the left of the address bar tells if you if Firefox is blocking trackers and scripts on a site.

- Purple: Firefox blocked trackers and harmful scripts on a site. Open the shield to see what was blocked.

- Gray: No known trackers or harmful scripts were detected on a site.

- Gray and crossed out: Enhanced Tracking Protection is turned off on a site. Open the shield and toggle the switch to turn it back on.

How to tell what’s being blocked on a site

Click on the shield to see what Firefox has blocked.

This panel will display different information depending on the site you’re on.

Blocked: Firefox blocked these trackers and scripts. Select each one to see a detailed list.

Allowed: These trackers and scripts loaded on the page. This is either because blocking them could cause the website to break, or because you’ve adjusted your privacy preferences to allow them.

None Detected: Firefox looked for these trackers and scripts, but did not find them on this site.

Select Protection Settings to adjust your global privacy settings.

Select Show Report to view everything that’s been blocked over the past week.

What to do if a site seems broken

If a site seems broken, try turning off Enhanced Tracking Protection. It allows trackers to load on that site only. Enhanced Tracking Protection will continue to block trackers on other sites.

Click on the shield
to the left of the address bar.

Toggle the switch
at the top of the panel.

This will turn off Enhanced Tracking Protection for this site. The page will reload automatically and allow trackers on this site only.

Follow the same process to turn Enhanced Tracking Protection back on.

You may encounter breakage on some sites when you’re in Strict Enhanced Tracking Protection. This is because trackers are hidden in some content. For example, a website might embed an outside video or social media post that contains trackers. To block the trackers, Firefox must also block the content itself.

Trackers are often hidden in the following types of content:

Login fields

Forms

Payments

Comments

Videos

Adjust your global Enhanced Tracking Protection settings

When you download Firefox, all protections included in Standard Enhanced Tracking Protection are already enabled.

To view or change your Enhanced Tracking Protection settings for all sites, click the shield
to the left of the address bar on any webpage and select Protection Settings. This will open the Firefox OptionsPreferencesPrivacy & Security panel in a new tab.

Tip: These settings are also available from the Firefox menu:Click
, click OptionsPreferences, and select Privacy & Security.